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The End Time Visitation of Jesus Christ:
Part
4
[ Part 1 ] [ Part 2 ] [ Part 3 ] [ Part 4 ]
[ Part 5
] [ Part 6 ] [ Part
7 ] [ Part 8 ]
[ Conclusion ]
Squandering the Presence: the Lesson of the “Triumphal” Entry
Lk. 19:37 As soon as He was approaching, near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen, 38 shouting: “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord; Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” 39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.” 40 But Jesus answered, “I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!” 41 When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, 42 saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes…44…, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”
The so-called “Triumphal Entry” opens to us a most paradoxical truth about the modern Spirit-visitation of Christ—superseded only by the mystery of iniquity yet to be studied. We must discern this story with exceeding care. No other tale from the annals of Jesus’ original incursion helps us understand our immediate end time state relative to “the Presence” like this one.If we are to take Jesus’ own viewpoint on what happened that “Sunday” leading into Jerusalem, we discover rather quickly that the appellation “triumphal entry” is somewhat of a misnomer for this event. For in the Lord’s own heart, all triumph was only in a very short-lived appearance.
Despite the praises of all the people which He otherwise sanctioned, and other than that He knew He was fulfilling prophecy to make this historic donkey ride (Zec. 9:9), Jesus’ trajectory through those throngs was a cause for deep internal grief and sadness, not for rejoicing, and certainly not for triumph. The larger background of the story itself bears this out, but requires diligence to perceive. It comes to us from the aftermath of the feeding of the 5,000 in John 6.
- A King by Force
We have already observed how that, throughout Jesus’ three year visitation, He had no confidence or joy in the response of the populace to Him. He was either being rejected, or else He was being “gladly received” from a shallow position of self-assured stupor that never came to grips with the internal reality He sought most to ignite in His hearers. In this, we saw also that He was constantly pursued as a “phenom” by a carnally hyped fame that He did not want and sought to discourage—all of which we applied forward to today’s “moves” of God.
But the story of the 5,000 brings this all into focus in one place. It introduces us to the competitory corporate agenda that “the people” wanted to make of Christ’s visitation. That agenda is found in this one passage:
6:14 Therefore when the people saw the sign which He had performed, they said, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.” 15 So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone.
Here we see welcoming carnal energy moving from passive gladness to forceful assertion of its own purpose alongside the visitation itself. The popular agenda was to co-opt Jesus’ eternal mission into supporting Israel’s bid for restored national sovereignty under a human king, free from the evil dictates of the crushing Roman world empire. “Make Israel Great Again!” was the cry of these masses. (It was in disguise the exact agenda the devil had offered Jesus on the mount of temptation—to bring Him the world’s kingship—if only He would bow to him.)
But what did Jesus do? He did what He always did when the human agenda threatened His true purpose. He withdrew from them. He withdrew from the limelight. He went where He could only be found of the few and where He could work unhindered by the false national religious spirit still seeking to seduce Him.
Only now may we fast forward to understand the truth about the “triumphal” entry. Understand: between the feeding of the 5,000 and the triumphal entry, nothing had changed in Israel. The masses were still bound by spiritual stupor, having no ears to hear internal truth, remaining committed to the self-seeking motives that had characterized their entire attraction to Jesus—greatest of which was to make Him Israel’s triumphant Messiah-King. This was their response to all the signs and wonders they had seen.
- Idolizing the Divine Goodness
Here is the subtle divine trick of heart testing we must understand and remember at the base of Jesus’ miracle ministry that evoked this clamor for His kingship. All of Christ’s good signs and wonders and physical deliverances were designed to lead to the internal repentance of His hearers—a repentance necessary to Jesus’ true spiritual lordship. It was for no other purpose. As Paul said it,
Rom. 2:4 NKJ Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?
Consequently, Jesus reacts to all the self-indulged welcoming of Himself this way:
Mt. 11:20 Then He began to denounce the cities in which most of His miracles were done, because they did not repent. 21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. … 23 And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will descend to Hades; for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day …”
What was happening as a result of all these miracles? Instead of evoking internal repentance unto spiritual lordship, Christ’s visitation led to the self-reinforcement of the carnal ambition the people already had in mind for a king. In this, Israel’s receivers squandered His visitation on the quest for fulfilled earthly aspirations. They sought to use Jesus unto these ends, being their only real basis for desiring His kingship. They had no use for a spiritual king.
- “King” for a Day
Only from this perspective can the story of the triumphal entry be rightly understood. We see in this event the overflow of what the people wanted to do all along in making Jesus king by force. Jesus’ heart had not changed, and neither had theirs. The only difference now was that, on that day, despite being the only one to know what kind of a spiritual king He truly was, Jesus yielded to this carnal display in fulfilment of the prophecy:
Zec. 9:9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, Humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
One can easily ask, “How could anyone be blamed for understanding this prophecy any way other than to exult over Jesus as any human king is seen and understood to be?”
But asking this is to entirely forget the unsavory origin of Israel’s kingship. The “king” prophesied by Zechariah was not and could never be a carnal king “like all the nations” which Israel had disobediently sought from Samuel (I Sam. 8:4-7). For a thousand years Israel had lost all consciousness of God as their only king, the only king to which Zechariah could ever rightly refer. Thus the people of the first visitation, though they had deep historical reason to understand, never understood spiritual kingship.
This is why, in those short-lived moments atop that donkey, Jesus captures the wrenching irony with these words: “…because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”
Again, what? How could He say that? Is not that “recognition” what this triumphal entry was all about?? Everyone but the Pharisees that day was proclaiming, “Yes! We recognize your visitation! We honor you! That’s why we are here—to make you our King!”
But, no! This again is the grave paradox. Israel squandered the visitation of Jesus on a false recognition of His kingship—a “recognition” that had occupied their hearts since the day they first cried out for Saul. They “recognized,” but did not recognize the King that day for Who He truly was. As He had said, “having eyes (to recognize), they see not (what they are to have recognized).” Though they cried out for peace, they did not understand “the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes.” They did not understand the meaning or importance of peace with God through repentant heart conversion and purging which alone brings true, lasting peace before any political peace can ever be had.
- The “Triumphal Entry” Today
Again, only against this climactic event in its true context—an event immediately prior to the end of Jesus’ visitation—can we truly understand what has been happening “under the Presence” in the modern end time prophetic church. This is especially so regarding the American prophetic stream since the 1980’s with the “Reagan Revolution”—and all the more so in the “Trump Era.” The same carnal recognition of Christ’s “kingship” over America and its debauched culture prevails under His Presence now as prevailed during His physical visitation peaking with the “triumphal entry.”
Today’s end time “New” Covenant church has no more real recognition of Christ’s spiritual kingship than Israel did before. Israel still wanted a king “like the nations.” And so has the church under the Presence, which is why it tirelessly hijacks and diverts Christ’s powers to impute His name upon human political figures and parties and society itself each generation. The Seven Mountains cultural conversion philosophy supporting that diversion is built on this carnal recognition.
Yet, all the while vociferously “decreeing” Christ’s national “kingship” under the Presence, the church has absolutely not recognized His visitation as He has meant us to receive Him in the closing of these last days. He can only weep! Despite the wider dimensions of Christ’s Spirit visitation touching more people than ever before, our encounters continue to be squandered on the same carnal agendas as before, which we blindly label as “spiritual” and “prophetic.”
The growing belief now is that at some point, we will reach a high enough encounter with “the Presence” to produce that elusive tipping point that finally yields the decisive blow of the culture war here in America and the West, delivering their “seven mountains” up into the church’s hands—which we envision will be the ultimate “revival,” even unto “the manifestation of the Sons of God”!
At the first visitation, that was the belief of all the disciples, not just the people. After all, had not Jesus just recently told them they would be “ruling over the twelve tribes of Israel?” So that was their understanding of “taking dominion” and of “manifesting” in that hour. And the triumphal entry was what they themselves envisioned should be Israel’s tipping point that very day!
It wasn’t. It wasn’t then, and it isn’t and won’t be now. Instead, the deepest, darkest searching and proving of the heart and mind anyone then or now had ever known was about to commence…..
&&&&&&&&&&
As a parting look at this story then, we just want to note the totality of confusing contention between the praises of the carnally enthralled masses singing “Hosanna to the king of kings,” and the carnal rejecters praying to Him, “rebuke those wild charismatic masses, Lord! Stop this false revival!” The sum of conflictory strains between deluded receivers and deceived rejecters we previously laid out all collide here in this closing “revival” event before the cross. And so it is today. The way it all came together then—and what followed—is the way it is all coming together now under Christ’s growing visitation to the end times church.
(To be continued…)
Chris Anderson
New Meadow Neck, Rhode Island
First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org10/19
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